Sound fitted Farish Nunney Castle

[BR Signalman]

Anybody managed to get their hands on a Sound Fitted Nunney Castle? I had one on order from Salisbury Model Centre for the last 3 months. Didn't turn up in the delivery and when Bachmann were contacted, ain't got any and no idea when we will, so order cancelled.
Distinctly not impressed!

[mickeyflinn]

Showing as in stock at Rails;
https://www.railsofsheffield.com/castle-class-nunney-castle-gwr-preserved-livery-locomotive-5029-dcc-sound-372-033ds-graham-farish-JJJA30650.aspx

[BR Signalman]

Thank you to both who responded so quickly. I have managed to order one from Osbornes. However,my point is that if an order is placed with Farish, 3 months out, why wait till it should be delivered to then not deliver with no prior warning?
I fully appreciate that the lead time is such that they need to allocate slots for manufacture but if they cannot deliver, why wait till the delivery to say this?

[BR Signalman]

As a total aside, I have ordered a sound fitted Class 40 Diesel from Salisbury Model Centre. As this is not shown for delivery till Oct/Nov, it will be interesting to see what happens with this!
Also, if you happen to be in Salisbury, I whole heartedly recommend a visit to this shop.
I have no connection at all to the shop but the owner is extremely helpful and whilst there is not a huge range of N Gauge stuff, he is extremely helpful and will go out of his way to get what you want.

[Kaian]

I ordered from rails the other day and got mine this evening. It seems most shops are out of stock, I bought one more for the novelty of sound for preserved on my modern layout. But everyone that did have stock I was watching over the last few weeks were running out. I am wondering if they under estimated the demand for the model.

[Ben A]

Hi all,

I never normally buy steam engines but as this one is marketed as an Era 9 loco, with electrification flashes etc as in preservation, and having seen it demonstrated at a recent show, I couldn't resist.

Maybe it is the additional sales from modern image enthusiasts like me that has made this one fly off the shelves?

Cheers

Ben A.

[NeilWhite]

I think the extra sales may be partly (largely?) because it is an easy and relatively cheap entry into DCC sound. I think Bachmann (US) have also been releasing some N scale DCC sound fitted locos at (for a sound fitted loco) quite reasonable prices.

My Nunney Castle cost A$283 including shipping from Hattons. This is not much more than a regular DCC (non-sound) fitted steam loco.

Neil

[Nick]

I've just bought one from Bourton Models. It arrived on Tuesday, and I've been fiddling today.

Has anyone succeeded in adding the Safety Valves Lifted sound to the random sounds? The Grafar leaflet says to set CV 744 = 121 to add it, and set CV 744 = 0 to remove it again. But it doesn't seem to be working for me. It's not added the sound. I haven't tried setting to zero to see what happens yet. It was 130 before I started fiddling.

This is my first sound fitted loco, so I'm floundering rather, but the Zimo manual for the decoder says that CV744 contains the details of which sounds are played by random generator Z1. Unfortunately, it doesn't explain how the CV is coded. Instead it gives a complex set of procedures for choosing the samples, illustrated by screenshots of a Zimo cab and which I think would require a detailed knowledge of the sound project that I don't have.

It just feels a little unlikely that changing a CV from 130 to 121 would add one sound - I'd have expected one bit to be set or unset. And it certainly feels wrong to set it back to 0 to remove the Safety Valve sound, when it shipped set to 130.

Apart from this quirk, I'm very pleased.

[Nick]

It just feels a little unlikely that changing a CV from 130 to 121 would add one sound - I'd have expected one bit to be set or unset. And it certainly feels wrong to set it back to 0 to remove the Safety Valve sound, when it shipped set to 130.

I contacted Graham Farish Customer Service about this, and received a very helpful email back. It turns out that the instruction sheet is in error.

The values that should be used for CV744 are:

CV744=130 (default as shipped) random sounds are played while the loco is stationary, but excluding Safety Valve Lifting
CV744=120 (not 121 as per instructions) Safety Valve Lifting is played randomly along with the other random sounds
CV744 = 0   all random sounds suppressed (I assume the loco just hisses and simmers then, but I've not tried it.)

Hopefully, this will stop others being confused.